Notes: No, today's Good Word is not a misspelling of frothy, but a distinct adjective based on forth (see Word History). It originates in southwest England, around Devon and Cornwall, but English is spoken there, too, so we are free to use vocabulary from there. The comparative would be forthier and the superlative forthiest, while forthiness would be the noun indicating the quality distinguishing a forthy person.

In Play: Today's word is a good substitute for forthcoming when you are in a hurry and want to shorten things: "I have always found Dorian Seaman forthy on the subject of his marriage—too forthy, if anything." This word is more often used in the pejorative sense of forwardness: "The forthy waster had the cheek to ask my wife for a dance before I had the chance to."

Word History: We can trace this Good Old Word back to a form *per in Proto-Indo-European (PIE), the language from which most Indian and European languages derive. Per meant "forward, before, in front of". It underlies English for and far, with its derivatives farther and further. It is also the origin of English fore found in foreground, foremost, and before. The same PIE root became Old Iranian pairi "around", visible in pairidaeza "a wall around (a garden)". Hebrew borrowed this word as its pardess "citrus orchard". The Greeks, however, wrote so ebulliently of the lushness of Persian gardens that the word entered Greek as paradeisos "paradise", the sense it had when English borrowed it.

Notes: No, today's Good Word is not a misspelling of frothy, but a distinct adjective based on forth (see Word History). It originates in southwest England, around Devon and Cornwall....

Devon and Cornwall are both coastal counties in southwestern England. Does that explain the "Seaman" surname? (Pirates of Penzance, coastal "wrecking" by the people of Cornwall, false lighthouses to lure ships "astray" onto the rocky coast, etc.)

2. Then there's always the scribbling of Oscar Wilde. Can it fairly be categorized as "perverted"? I'm thinking of "The Picture of Dorian Gray." Wikipedia's references to Dorian's "beauty" seem to put the right "spin" on it:

Ah, yes, a waster is a wastrel is a form of scoundrel. I get the dory and seaman tie ins, but usually the Good Doctor's names have a humorous aspect to them. Phil Anders, Marian Kind, and so on. What does this one mean?

Life is like playing chess with chessmen who each have thoughts and feelings and motives of their own.

This time the Doctor may have struck out. He may have "whiffed" with a pun which fell flat. It may only have been "DORY ... AND ... SEAMAN." That may have been all of it. ("Dorian" as a mispronunciation of "Dory And"...)

(Is this an example of metathesis? The same process might be seen in the transformation of "Kit and Caboodle" to a "cute" nickname, "Kitty Caboodle": "Kit and" becomes "Kitten" and that's replaced by "an actual nickname," "Kitty." That's painfully corny, but I'm guessing The Good Doctor may be inflicting a similar "witticism" on us here...)

I've got it. Here's the technique. I'll try to enter the actual code enlarged in bold blue and my explanatory text in black. Needless to say, no spaces should be added between the text which you're entering as a hyperlinked substitute for the full "actual" URL and the code, at either end ("fore" or "aft," as Dorian Seaman would put it...):

[url=Enter your "actual url" here]Enter your own text here. It'll be hyperlinked and it'll substitute for the long URL, which will remain "operative" "behind the screen," in the page's source code.[/url]

That's "it." You can see that, in normal HTML fashion, you're merely "bracketing" your hyperlinked text between a starting and an ending HTML "tag" but you're "installing" the "actual working URL" in the first of the two "tags." The first tag is "carrying the payload."

The Good Doctor says they speak English in Devon and Cornwall. Most do after a fashion, some don't. The Cornish language and culture still hangs on in this corner of England. When an old Cornish man was asked if he had ever been to London, he replied that he had never even been to England. The same is true for Brittany and France. Brittany and Cornwall are renowned for snubbing import/export laws. Cornish men go to Brittany for brides and vice versa. Long live the Celts.

Perhaps Dorian Seaman is a seaman who operates only a dory, and no other type of boat?

Are you saying the name "Dorian" indicates "Only a Dory"? Can you explain that interpretation?

(I should explain that I assume The Good Doctor is only human. I don't think each of his puns can be a rip-roaring success, and I assume this one just didn't make the grade. Your explanation may be consistent with my assumption: You may be suggesting that this isn't a good pun, so the connection of "Dorian" with the idea of only operating a dory may not be clear...)

Yes, I am suggesting that "dorian" can imply that a person operates only a dory, be it a permanent condition or only temporary, and not another kind of boat. And yes, the Good Doctor is only human and aren't we glad. I personally find this pun a subtle one, a nice counterpoint to his usual blatantly delicious ones. He didn't fail, I think he just threw us a bit of a curve ball, which certainly generated much discussion. Bravo Doc - you must be smiling at our little tempest in a teapot.